Humans know what it is to be influenced by an exterior force. When they go against it, they feel to be exercising their freedom of will. But some people, known as ‘determinists’, suggest that there are imperceptible forces operating in the brain which make the feeling of freedom illusory.

This resolution of the debate is to be found not through theory but by experiment. There are physical processes in the brain which correspond with mental events. We need to ask: ‘Are those processes always the result of the operation of physical forces, or are there some brain events which would seem, to an observing scientist, to appear to happen ‘at random’?

One of the crucial predictions made in Alphomism is that we will find that there are brain events which have no identifiable physical causes and that these are associated with the operation of will.

In support of the prediction it can be said that the acceptance of free will explains a great deal whereas it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to concoct a satisfying account of the universe based purely on determinism. There is the further point that if the billions upon billions of humans who think that they sometimes act freely are deluded, then some account must be given, by the unswerving determinist, of the significance of this phenomenon. What is the purpose of such vast self-deception?